Foes Fear Tram Flimflam

[May 12th, 2004] Call it an unwritten law of urban planning: The bolder the project, the more agonizing the process. It doesn't get much bolder than the proposed aerial tram linking Oregon Health & Science University to the new riverside neighborhood slated for the North Macadam district. In fact, there's no other comparable mass-transit project in the world.

So it's hardly surprising that critics have blasted the tram during its two-year voyage toward reality. It's been called an architectural folly, a neighborhood-wrecking eyesore and, especially after the initial budget nearly doubled, a boondoggle. None of those gripes succeeded in derailing the tram--the linchpin of OHSU's expansion into North Macadam.

With the tram facing its final vote June 10 before the Portland City Council, opponents are scrambling for fresh ammunition in their fight to stop the project. Their latest target is the $3.3 million in urban-renewal funds the city plans to pump into the $28 million geegaw.

Tram opponents question the legality--or at least propriety--of using the money, generated by borrowing against future North Macadam taxes and fees. They point out that two-thirds of the tram's 3,300-foot route up Marquam Hill lies outside the North Macadam urban-renewal district.

City officials counter that it's standard practice to spend urban-renewal dollars on projects that extend outside a particular district. That argument doesn't wash with tram opponents.

"It really needs to be evaluated," says Jerry Ward, a Portland architect who sits on North Macadam's citizen advisory committee and opposes the aerial OHSU express. "Even if it's happened before, does that necessarily make it right?"

Matt Brown, the Portland Office of Transportation official who is the city's point man on the tram project, says doubts about the urban-renewal funds make some sense "in principle." However, he says, it's not unusual for renewal money to mix with other cash to pay for projects extending beyond urban-renewal areas.

"Light rail, for example, goes into and out of some urban-renewal areas," Brown says. "And it's within the definition of urban renewal to spend money on stations and other improvements in the district, even if the whole project isn't within the district."

Brown and others connected to the project say the $3.3 million is fair game because tram developers will put several times that amount into tram-related improvements within the North Macadam urban-renewal district. Plans for the tram's lower terminus, for example, call for pedestrian connections to surround greenspace and a pub/restaurant space. Brown says these and other tram elements will mean roughly $15 million in improvements within the district itself.

All the same, tram opponents hope the issue helps them ratchet up political opposition to the tram before the council vote. Moreover, they say the tram project's sheer complexity means that there may be other objections they simply haven't yet unearthed.

"We're all volunteers playing in a game with high-priced lawyers and paid specialists," says Jim Davis, the land-use chair for the Corbett-Terwilliger-Lair Hill neighborhood association. "We're going as fast as possible."